Donor Pulls Funds for Exhibit at Smithsonian

A promised $38-million donation to the Smithsonian Institution was withdrawn Monday, forcing the cancellation of a planned new exhibit that critics alleged damaged the institution’s integrity.

The announcement came less than three weeks after 170 activists and scholars complained that Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small, the institution’s chief executive, has commercialized the museums.

The Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation pledged the money in May, earmarked for a “Spirit of America” exhibition to honor as many as 100 prominent Americans. It had been scheduled to open in 2004.

The now-scrapped 10,000-square-foot exhibit was to highlight Americans that included ice skater Dorothy Hamill, basketball legend Michael Jordan and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. When the donation was announced, Small called it “an extraordinary gift.”

The Smithsonian’s long-held policy dictates that it and not sponsors control the timing, content and intent of exhibitions. In a statement, Marc Pachter, acting director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, said the “Spirit of America” project “was being developed in strict accordance with Smithsonian standards.”

The Washington Post quoted Reynolds’ letter as saying criticism of the exhibit’s focus on individuals rather than groups by Smithsonian staff was the main reason she changed her mind.

Known as “the nation’s attic,” the Smithsonian was established in 1846 with a bequest by Briton James Smithson. It is an independent trust, comprising 16 museums and galleries and the National Zoo in Washington and research facilities in the United States and abroad. It holds more than 140 million artifacts and specimens and is a center for research and scholarship in the arts, sciences and history.

A letter the complaining group sent last month to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, chancellor of the Smithsonian’s ruling Board of Regents, demanded that Small be fired.

The statement issued by Pachter gave no reason for the decision.

“You would have to talk to the donor about that, what their reasons are,” Smithsonian spokesman David Umansky said.

The Post, however, quoted Reynolds as saying in her letter:

“Apparently, the basic philosophy for the exhibit--the power of the individual to make a difference--is the antithesis of that espoused by many within the Smithsonian bureaucracy, which is only movements and institutions make a difference, not individuals.”